


Food Allergies

by madneto



Series: Vampires Are Nerds [1]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Erik is Crushing Harder than a 12-year Old Girl, Fluff and Crack, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-07-12 23:44:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7128869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madneto/pseuds/madneto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bout of insomnia one fateful night leads Erik to Xavier's, the late night bookstore near Columbia University, whose owner Erik quickly decides is the best thing since... well, since maybe ever. Charles is brilliant, funny, passionate, handsome, and every other good adjective Erik can think of, and even though they've only been on three dates, Erik is convinced this is the start of something perfect.</p><p>Then Charles has a bad reaction to the food Erik cooks for them on their fourth date, leaving Erik to wonder if maybe he's completely botched his one chance at true love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Food Allergies

It’s seven o’clock precisely when Erik hears the knock on the front door. At once, his smile spreads slow and wide across his face in response. He puts the lid back on the pot of bubbling chicken and spices and practically hops out of the kitchen on his way to answer it, feeling a little silly at the little lurch of excitement his stomach gives.

This is only his and Charles’ fourth date, but Erik can already tell that this relationship is different. Charles is everything Erik thought he was too demanding for wanting in a partner: intelligent, funny, outgoing, savvy, and an astoundingly good chess player. Not to mention he’s the most gorgeous man Erik thinks he’s ever seen, with his scattering of freckles and striking blue eyes and almost especially those blood-red lips. It’s almost as if Charles exudes a patented kind of sexual charge, even in his everyday nonchalant movements like walking through the park hand in hand with Erik as the sun sets over the tops of the trees, or when he’s shelving books in his late-night bookstore.

That’s where they’d first met, in fact; at Charles’ bookstore. Xavier’s is tucked away in a corner of Harlem just a few blocks from Erik’s brownstone, and has been there ever since Erik moved in a few years ago. He’d glanced in the window several times on his way back from work, but it was only about a month ago, during a midnight walk around the block to try and cure a sudden bout of insomnia, that Erik had gone in. Now he’s infinitely glad that he did.

Xavier’s caters to a very specific clientele: the book lover who can’t seem to stay on a normal person’s sleep schedule. Erik likes reading, though he’d hardly call himself a bibliophile like Charles, and in the first few minutes of his first visit, he’d browsed a bit and been impressed with the selection. But then Charles had sidled up to him and asked if he saw anything he liked, and Erik had looked up and had to bite back the response, “You”. Charles had smiled like he’d heard the answer anyway, but then he got to talking about the new Paula Hawkins novel, and then Erik had started in on Joyce Carol Oates, and somehow they ended up hitting it off.

Erik had stayed over two hours just talking to Charles, a few stragglers wandering in and making purchases as they chatted by the ancient cash register. Charles closed up shop at 3:30am – “No point in keeping the lights on past then, I’ve found” he’d said – but he encouraged Erik to come back the next night if he was free before the shop opened at nine. Erik had accepted, and for a few weeks they fell into an easy routine of chatting for a few hours before Erik went to bed and Charles finished up work. Talking to Charles actually helped cure Erik’s restlessness, which would have been great if Charles’ schedule hadn’t been so different from Erik’s.

But somehow, all that ended up working itself out as well. Just after almost two and a half weeks of nighttime chess matches and tentative flirting, Charles had asked Erik if he wanted to go out for coffee sometime. Erik, of course, had heartily accepted, and they met the next day at a place Charles knew in midtown. A few days later they saw a production at Free Shakespeare in the Park, and a few days after that they’d gotten ice cream and walked the High Line. That evening, when Erik dropped Charles off in front of his shop, Charles had smiled shyly up at him before snaking his arms around Erik’s neck, standing on tip-toe and pulling him down for a surprisingly chaste kiss.

He saw Charles last night, too, just before the shop opened up, to invite him to dinner tonight. Charles doesn’t have a cell phone – he claims he doesn’t need one since he’s almost always in the shop or his apartment above it, and both of those places have landlines – so usually Erik will just walk up to the door and knock or go in. Again, the lack of a phone is another thing that sets Charles apart from other people. He doesn’t quite seem connected to the rest of the world in a traditional sense, although he’s only ever been exceedingly polite and social person-to-person whenever they’ve gone out. It’s almost as if Charles floats above everything, picking and choosing from what modern conveniences he likes, and leaving the rest behind without a second thought.

Somehow, this makes Erik like him all the more. Charles is no-nonsense and frank, and Erik, who has never been able to read people well, likes being with a person he knows is with him because he wants to be, not because he’s playing some sort of game Erik doesn’t know the rules to. The lack of a cell phone, the almost nocturnal schedule, the old-fashioned till that sits on the counter and Charles’ almost grandpa-ish reply when Erik asked why he doesn’t replace it with something newer that can run credit cards – “This makes sense to me, Erik, you press a button and see the numbers come up, not like these new touch screens where everything’s inside with wires. What happens if something goes wrong? I’ll have to call someone in to fix it and I have no idea who fixes touch screens” – these are all some of the things that make Charles Charles. And Erik likes Charles quite a lot.

So, because Erik has somehow fallen half in love with a frumpy old man disguised in the most attractive, five-foot-seven package Erik has ever seen, he can’t stop the excited jittering in his chest when he bounds up to the door and pulls it open. Charles is standing there on his front stoop, looking a little nervously at the flower box full of Sweet William that sits under Erik’s window, but as soon as the door opens he turns, and seeing Erik, gives him a bright, genuine smile.

“Erik,” he says, the word sounding soft and velvety as Belgian chocolate on his tongue. “Hello.”

“Hi,” Erik replies. “You found it.”

Charles shrugs, smile turning a little shy. “It wasn’t that hard.” He hesitates for a moment before reaching out and taking the fingers Erik has curled around the outside of the doorframe, tugging him until he steps just over the threshold and into Charles’ space.

They stand there, grinning at each other for a moment before Charles leans up and Erik leans down and their lips meet in a soft kiss. One kiss turns into two and then three, and then more. A small part of Erik’s brain notes that it’s a bit silly to be making out with Charles on his front steps when there’s a perfectly good couch – a perfectly good bed – just a few feet away, but he’s been thinking about the press of Charles’ mouth against his, the warm slide of his lips ever since their last kiss two days ago and he can’t bring himself to stop.

Far too soon, they have to pull away, but when they do, Charles is smiling up at Erik just as fiercely as Erik feels he’s smiling down at Charles, and his stomach gives another emphatic flop.

“So,” Charles says quietly, “are you going to invite me in?”

Shaking himself slightly, Erik nods, rubbing a slow circle on Charles’ lower back where his hand is resting. “Yes,” he says a little dazedly. “Yes, of course. Please, come in.”

Now that Erik thinks about it, their dinner is probably almost burning, and that thought manages to bring him back to his senses. He doesn’t want the evening ruined when he’d planned out the meal so carefully and made a special trip to the expensive imported foods store near his work just to get some of the more elusive ingredients. He takes Charles hand and tugs him inside, shutting the door behind them, leading Charles through the foyer and into the living room, where he drops his hand to go into the kitchen by himself.

“Go ahead and take a look around if you like,” he says over his shoulder. “The bookshelf is over there. Judge my taste in crime novels all you want.”

“Gladly,” Charles replies impishly, and Erik grins again.

Glancing at the time, Erik sees the chicken probably needs a few more minutes to simmer, but the rice should be ready to be taken off the heat. He moves that pot from its burner and places it to the side, grabbing one of the serving bowls he’d taken out of the cupboard earlier and pouring the rice into it with the help of a wooden spoon. Placing the lid on top, Erik carries the bowl to the table in the corner, which is already set with his nicest china and silver, then goes to the fridge for the salad he’d made earlier. When he turns around again, salad in hand, he sees Charles has migrated into the kitchen, leaning up against the doorjamb as he watches Erik, the corners of his mouth turned gently up.

Erik pauses halfway to the table, arrested by the almost magnetic pull that is Charles. Smile widening, Charles pushes off the doorjamb and saunters up to Erik, letting their fingers brush suggestively as he takes the salad from his hands before turning to go place it next to the rice. Erik watches him, unmoving until Charles makes his way back over and takes Erik’s hand, leading him back over to the stove.

“Tell me what you made for us,” Charles says, wrapping both arms around one of Erik’s biceps. He brushes his cheek across Erik’s shoulder bone and a trail of goosebumps shoots up Erik’s arm to his neck, making the short hairs at the base stand on end in anticipation.

Erik clears his throat. “Well,” he says, grabbing a spoon with one hand and the lid of the chicken pot with the other. “There’s rice already on the table, and the salad you put out. And then in here there’s some chicken and her–”

But his words are cut off as Charles suddenly reels away from him, dropping his arm with a shriek as steam from the lid Erik just picked up begins to billow out toward him. Immediately, Erik drops the lid back down, watching in horror as Charles stumbles through into the living room, away from the scent of cooking chicken and onions and garlic, tripping over the end of the couch and nearly falling headlong into the coffee table. He coughs so hard it makes Erik’s own lungs hurt, hacking spitting sounds issuing from his lips, and Erik starts forward, heart hammering and arms outstretched although he has no idea what to do.

“Charles!” he shouts, panicked. “Charles are you okay? What’s wrong?”

Still coughing, Charles throws himself blindly toward the door, wrenching it open so hard the handle falls off in his hand. He practically leaps outside and onto Erik’s front steps again, gasping in lungfuls of tangy city air. Shaking, Erik follows him, not wanting to touch Charles in case he somehow makes things worse, standing there stupidly with a wooden spoon still in his hand, staring helplessly as Charles finally begins to breathe normally again. His face is white as a sheet and he’s trembling almost as much as Erik. Slowly, Charles sinks down until he’s sitting with his back against the iron handrail, eyes wide and watery as he looks up at Erik.

“Charles,” Erik says hopelessly crouching down next to him at once and throwing the spoon away. “Are you all right?”

“I’ll be fine,” Charles says. His voice sounds scratchy, though, and his gaze is suddenly uncertain. He licks his lips, chest still heaving, and asks quietly, “Erik, did you put garlic in that?”

Erik nods. “Garlic and onions and some other things,” he says. “Why? Are… are you allergic?”

Charles swallows, a small huff of a laugh escaping through his nose. “Something like that,” he says, looking away.

For a moment, they’re both silent, Charles chewing on his lip, lost in thought and Erik unable to do anything except watch him. Somehow Erik knows he’s made a grave misstep, and his heart sinks with the thought that maybe Charles is getting ready to make his exit with as much dignity as he can. Maybe Charles will ask him to stop coming by his shop, break things off completely. Silently, Erik kicks himself for not asking Charles if he had any food allergies when he said last night he was going to make them dinner. But then again, Charles hadn’t said anything about it either. It’s not like garlic is uncommon. There’s definitely something else going on here, Erik thinks, but what else could it be?

And wait, fuck, didn’t Charles just rip his door handle off???

“Erik,” Charles says quietly. “There’s something I think I should tell you… but I don’t know if you’re going to believe me, and even if you do, I’m not sure that you’ll want to go on courting each other.” He pauses, reaching out to rest the tips of his fingers softly against Erik’s knee. “Could we… could we go back inside and maybe open a window?”

“Sure,” Erik says, hoping he sounds more level-headed than he feels.

He stands and offers a hand to help Charles up, too. Together, they walk back inside. Erik closes the door behind them by shouldering it until it’s shut then bolting it into place, and Charles awkwardly lays the ruined handle on the small bench next to the door before following him into the living room again, holding his breath. Erik goes over and opens both of the living room windows and turns on the fan. Then he goes into the kitchen and takes the chicken off the stove so it doesn’t burn, although they obviously won’t be eating that tonight.

When he makes his way back into the living room he sees Charles is sitting on the end of the couch nearest the fresh air, gazing distractedly out the window, but as soon as he hears Erik step into the room, he turns again, his expression unspeakably sad.

“Come sit?” he asks.

Erik crosses the space between them at once, sitting down next to Charles, though far enough apart that their legs aren’t brushing. He doesn’t want to make this harder for either of them than it already is. As soon as he’s seated, Charles lets out a heavy sigh, biting his bottom lip again briefly before he opens his mouth and starts in.

“Let me preface this by saying I haven’t felt for anyone else the way I feel about you in a long, long time. Maybe ever, which is why I was so wary to even tell you this to begin with. It was selfish, but I didn’t want to… to ruin something before it could even start.”

“How could telling me you’re allergic to garlic ruin our relationship?” Erik asks, more than a little lost, but not feeling very assured in himself with the way Charles is looking at him.

Charles lets out a quiet, frustrated noise and wets his lips again. “It’s not just that,” he presses, and his tone makes it evident that he’s upset not at Erik, but at himself. “It’s everything else. Don’t pretend like you haven’t noticed. Think about it, Erik; I run a late-night bookshop that you said yourself could have been from the 1890s for all the modern conveniences. We only go out in the evenings when the sun is on its way down. I needed to be invited to come into your house.”

Erik stares at him, flabberghasted. “Well of course I invited you in,” he replies. “What were you going to do, climb in through the window and surprise me?”

“No,” Charles says emphatically, but Erik cuts him off, not allowing himself to follow Charles’ train of thought any further.

“And lots of people only go out at night. I have a day job and you have a night job, plenty of people like that have relationships and they work out just fine. You said yourself, you started the bookshop because it’s close to the campus and lots of students need last minute books late at night–”

“They do,” Charles breaks in again. “That wasn’t a lie. But Erik–”

“You didn’t need to be invited into the coffee shop last week,” Erik says doggedly. “What are you trying to say, that you’re Count Dracula or something?”

“I didn’t need to be invited in because I’d already been invited before,” Charles says, his voice raising just a tad with exasperation. “Raven works there and she’s my familiar.”

Erik hears himself bark out a harsh, disbelieving laugh. “Your familiar?” he asks. He looks at Charles desperately, waiting for Charles to crack a grin and admit that this is just a big, bad, overblown joke.

Instead, he nods. “A familiar is someone who works for a vampire–” Erik can’t hold back a strangled noise at that but Charles barrels on pointedly, “for a vampire, doing little chores for them they can’t complete themselves and in return, they’ll get everlasting life.”

“You’re going to bite Raven,” he deadpans.

“One day, yes!” Charles says defiantly, definitely incensed now. His nostrils are flaring and he’s frowning with indignation.

“You go out in the sunlight.”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Erik, this isn’t a bad horror movie. Vampires don’t turn to ash in sunlight, that’s a myth. Read a book.”

“You can eat human food,” Erik points out, getting a little angry himself now after that last barb.

“And it all tastes like dirt!”

“I knew I saw you spit that coffee into that potted plant, I knew it!”

“Well, why didn’t you say something?” Charles whines, his eyes rolling to the ceiling in vexation as he flops back against the couch.

“Because we were having a nice date and I thought you’d be embarrassed if I did!” Erik replies. “And I like you a lot too and I didn’t want you to think I was judging you on our time out together!” He pauses, eyes narrowing suddenly in suspicion. “Hang on, what were you going to do with dinner tonight?”

“Choke it down, of course,” Charles replies, looking scandalized. “You were good enough to cook a meal for me, I wasn’t going to let it go to waste. Besides, I had… I had some blood before I came over here and that makes it easier to–”

Erik laughs again, feeling completely out of his depth. “You had some blood,” he says, shaking his head, eyes wide as he tries to wrap his head around the conversation.

Charles sits up again, frowning. “Yes, Erik! I had some blood! I steal it from the blood bank, okay, I’m not proud of it! But what am I going to do, go around biting college students? I went to college. Four times. They’ve got enough on their plates without me… What?” Charles peters out, brow un-furrowing slightly as he watches Erik, who once he began laughing can’t seem to stop.

This is all too ridiculous, Erik realizes through his haze of giddiness, though he knows it also isn’t a joke; there’s no way Charles would have sustained it for this long if it was, and his face has been so gravely serious, at least up until they started arguing. So. Charles is a vampire. An actual undead, blood sucking vampire. And because this is Charles he has a moral code about it too, of course, and won’t bite anybody who doesn’t want to be bitten. Charles must be the worst vampire there is; he must be the laughingstock of the whole vampire community. And oh god, now Erik is thinking about how many more vampires there must be, and do they have vampire conventions and he’s laughing even harder while Charles stares at him as if he’s thinking about calling an ambulance.

There had to be something, Erik thinks, wiping at his eyes as his stomach begins to hurt. He couldn’t be that perfect forever.

Charles watches him, half torn between smiling and frowning. When Erik reaches over and puts his hand on Charles’ arm, he looks down at it in surprise for a moment before looking back up at Erik, his gaze searching.

Erik schools his expression into something more serious, leaning slowly into Charles' space until they’re almost nose to nose. “Just tell me one thing,” he breathes.

Charles nods. “Anything,” he replies earnestly, his gaze flickering from Erik's eyes down to his lips and back again.

Erik pauses, taking in a quiet breath before he says, “Can you turn into a bat?”

Charles’ expression goes stony again, and Erik bursts out into another great peal of laughter, falling forward so his nose is buried in the junction between Charles’ neck and collarbone, shaking helplessly against him. After a moment, one of Charles’ hands comes up and pats him gently in the space between his shoulder blades, resting tentatively there for a moment before Charles finally relaxes again and the touch becomes more sure. Erik reaches out and wraps his arms around Charles’ waist, pulling him closer as at last he begins to calm down again.

“And here I was thinking you were going to try and call the cops or maybe put a stake through my heart,” Charles says, trying to sound cross, but Erik can hear the smile in his voice.

“Never,” Erik says, pressing a soft kiss to the skin of Charles’ throat. “Might as well put a stake through my own heart.” He pauses. “Sorry I made you garlic chicken.”

Charles lets out a quiet chuckle. “Sorry I didn’t tell you I was a vampire.”

Erik shrugs, leaning back to grin up at Charles. “It happens,” he says.

Charles rolls his eyes again. “Impossible,” he replies, but he leans down to kiss Erik again anyway, smiling into it.

Dinner’s completely forgotten, but Erik doesn’t mind as he tips his head and deepens the kiss, shifting so the angle isn’t so awkward when he slips his tongue into Charles’ mouth. Charles moans against him and begins to lean back, guiding them down to a more horizontal position until he’s flat against the cushions and Erik is braced on top of him, bracketed in by Charles’ legs on either side of his hips and Charles’ arms around his waist. Erik pulls back to nuzzle gently at Charles’ nose, smiling at the small sigh that escapes Charles in response. He pauses.

“But…” he begins, genuinely curious now that he thinks about it, “can you turn into a bat, though?”

Charles’ groan quickly turns into a chuckle when he opens his eyes and sees Erik isn’t joking. “Good lord,” he says, biting his lip to try and fight off his smile. “Why don’t I show you later if you’re so curious.”

Erik’s mouth drops open in surprise, and Charles laughs again at the look on his face.

“Later,” Erik agrees heartily.

Then he kisses Charles once more and both of them forget about anything else for a while.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr for a prompt requesting a vampire AU and I *jumped* at the chance because I. LOVE. VAMPIRES. MORE. THAN. MANY. THINGS. ON. THIS. EARTH.


End file.
